@sharepointdev: My First Week on Twitter

The inspiration came from an NPR segment about companies using twitter to monitor tweets about their products or brands (e.g., Comcast). I thought about it a while and I came to the conclusion that this was an ideal way for me to monitor forum activity because I often don’t have time to read and respond to MSDN Forum postings because of my busy schedule. But with only 140 characters, I can usually point people in the right direction and get them unstuck when they choose to write a post related to “SharePoint” or other keywords I search for and monitor. Having worked with the SharePoint product team for over 5 years, I am also in a unique position where I sometimes know just enough information about a wide variety of issues.

The VerdictI was really happy with my first week on twitter and what I learned or helped people with. I picked up over 30 followers, and I even got looped into some conversations back and forth related to something that might have otherwise been a source of frustration (e.g., updates and patches) for some of the folks out there looking for help. I am thinking of twitter as an open forum where I can take the pulse of where SharePoint users are asking for guidance.

Here is an overview of where I pointed people over the course of the last week. I saw one issue come up twice (Excel Services), and overall I was able to answer several questions using existing resources on MSDN and TechNet:

All in all, I’m going to continue to monitor any tweets I come across that mention “sharepoint” or other keywords and tags (such as “bdc” or “authentication” or “web parts”), as well as the people I’m following. If you’re a SharePoint developer, IT Pro, consultant, or solution provider, feel free to follow me and I’ll do the same to keep tabs on what’s going on out in the community. We’ve often got an answer or at least a direction we can point you toward. Also, check out my feed for what’s recently been published! https://twitter.com/sharepointdev.